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Ruby Installing a Ruby Development Environment Installing a Ruby Development Environment Treehouse VM Overview

Javier Alvarado
Javier Alvarado
16,060 Points
Posted by Javier Alvarado
Javier Alvarado
16,060 Points

Is installing the Treehouse VM optional?

I'm a little confused as to whether this is just another option or something I have to install in addition to all of the stuff I installed while following the "Installing Ruby on Windows" video. If it is just another option, what are the pros and cons of installing this instead of the other software?

1 Answer

Maciej Czuchnowski
Maciej Czuchnowski
36,441 Points
Maciej Czuchnowski
Maciej Czuchnowski
36,441 Points

Yeah, you can either use the VM or set up your own environment. The VM has everything pre-installed in the correct versions for each course. If you're setting up your own environment, you will occasionally discover differences between what is done in the videos and what you see on your computer (differences between Rails 3 and 4, different syntax for RSpec 2 and 3, etc.). So the VM, in theory, is less painful, but doesn't prepare you for the challenges of dealing with different versions of gems :).

Freddy D
Freddy D
2,596 Points

I had the same question! Thank you so much for clarifying this Mr. Maciej!!! :D